The city headed to become smart soon shall be a marvel to watch and walk through in the future, is what has been opined and professed by leaders and decision makers everyday. Yet as they say ‘Actions speak louder than words’ on grounds things are different. HimachalScape evidently found out that the barriers made by authorities to stop two wheelers from entering the periphery of markets around Mall road are merely nothing more than the well acclaimed Indian ‘Jugaad’ (As in pic).
The picture displays that the road from Lakkar Bazaar bus stand towards Tibetian market and then upto the Mall road has been barriered using a makeshift process. One of the busiest walking routes of the city, as even pedestrians from lower bazaar too prefer the route to reach Aucland, Bharari, Longwood etc. “Till about a few months ago some part of this road was being used a parking for two-wheelers,” informed Anuj Goel a regular on this route. However suddenly the parking was closed and makeshift barrier of beams and iron rods (sort off) were put here to keep off two-wheelers traffic here.
He said one can clearly see that the city claiming to become ‘smart’ is still relying on old time ‘Jugaads’ . Besides in this case the ‘Jugaad’ is not even being able to achieve the objective also, he mocked. It was done to stop two wheel traffic on the road, but no respite, as the gap between the Jugaad barrier is not tight enough to stop a two wheeler crossing through it. Clearly in picture one can see that a couple two wheelers have crossed over the ‘smart jugaad’ to be parked in comfort.
Moreover, he added’ in the evenings there is hardly any light in this zone of the walking path, and if someone collides on them such iron beam rods could become a possible threat, he complained. Secondly it is winters now and this area is one of coldest zones in the city, with a high possibility of ice freezing here, making the site more vulnerable to any untowardly incident, he added. Although when HimachalScape inspected it we could make out that the ones who installed this ‘Jugaad’, were also concerned about safety of pedestrians. So they did another ‘Jugaad’ for it. They rounded sacks with some padding on the top side of the iron rods tied by a plastic rope to avoid such incidents.
Indeed the site cannot be correlated with goal of the city. Besides if any barrier has to be installed, should be done as per standards laid by regulation i.e rounded steel with no pointed outlets and collapsible in case of any emergency requirement.